The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Lincoln Center Theater’s The Gardens of Anuncia

By Ross

Appealing and pretty in its fragrant blooming, Lincoln Center Theater‘s The Gardens of Anuncia charms as a memory musical that is also a carefully crafted flower seeded well from a strong friendship. Growing out of a fertile collaboration between composer and lyricist John Michael LaChiusa (First Daughter Suite) and his longtime collaborator, the famed director-choreographer Graciela Daniele, well known for her work on Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, Annie Get Your Gun, Once on This Island, and Ragtime, to name a few, this gentle caring musical, lacking somewhat in the drive and force that one might expect from a tango-fertilized score, finds its center in the caring and gentle memory formulations of its narrator. She is an older woman named Anuncia, carefully based on Daniele who directs and co-choreographs the piece with collaborator Alex Sanchez (Broadway’s Paradise Square), a formulation that shines kindly on its source, without digging too deep in the warm dark earth.

The Older Anuncia, played with a heartfelt presence by Priscilla Lopez (2ST’s Grand Horizons), best known for originating the role of Morales in A Chorus Line, is out in her backyard nurturing her garden, while both contemplating the difficult task of burying her loving Aunt’s ashes, while also evading the structural idea that she has to get dressed and drive into the city to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award for her celebrated work as a dancer, director, and, most importantly, a choreographer. It’s then, with magical realism and tender engagement that the memories of her life growing up in Argentina during the Perón regime come floating into the garden. And we go with it, that light, gentle breeze, not expecting too much friction or force from that wind, but only to feel its cooling tones on that hot Argentinian sound and sun.

Playing the young version of Anuncia, Kalyn West (Broadway’s The Prom) gives a beautifully nuanced mirroring of Lopez’s portrayal, engaging and collaborating on the reformation of memories while basking in the love for the three women who were her touchstones during that dangerous time in Argentina. It’s one of the more compelling aspects of this gentle musical, hearing and unpacking what it might have been like to be living and trying to survive that period of Argentina’s complicated history. Most of us know so little about Peronism, outside of the Rice/Webber musical Evita, and it was enlightening and engaging to hear some of the opinions and warnings voiced by this cast of characters. It added something real to the proceedings that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

But the main dance we are here to witness is the one that steps out of a teenager’s strong attachment to the loving threesome that raised the headstrong Anuncia; her Granmama, played with a gale force wind by Mary Testa (Broadway’s Oklahoma!), her Tía, played warmly and carefully by Andréa Burns (George Street’s Bad Dates), and her Mami, a role usually played by Eden Espinosa (MCC’s Hearts Beat Loud), but was played most graciously by the very gifted Francisca Muñoz (Paper Mill’s On Your Feet!) at the performance I attended. Yet inside Anuncia’s memory stories, they step forward, with soulful remembrances, bringing with them their symbolic gifts that were planted in Aununcia like seeds in her unseen garden.

The metaphors are all there, singing and stepping forward in the gentle charms of these three. Beyond the art of swearing – “Old people are allowed to swear“, she tells the child – Granmama taught the Young Anuncia the gift of drama and passionate love, and how they can be unique and complicated, but truly felt. Her kind Tía gave her the art of imagination, beautifully unpacked inside the graceful song “Listen to the Music.” But it is her mother, full of the complications of that maternal attachment, where she found dance, even if it was only by the flat-footed chance of rehabilitation. She also learned about God, and the way her mother responded to the Church and its views.

The three women react and engage in the Older Auncia’s memory stories; stories she fully admits might change depending on need and desire. But they play out with history and care intertwined most beautifully with song and creation, thanks to the strong musical direction by Deborah Abramson (LCT’s Bernarda Alba) with orchestrations by Michael Starobin (Transport Group’s Broadbend, Arkansas) and a solid sound by Drew Levy (Broadway’s A Strange Loop). The Gardens of Anuncia is gentle, like a breeze moving through the branches, with magic realism, in the form of a contemplative set of deers (and one fun Moustache Brothers number), portrayed with wit by Tally Sessions (Broadway’s War Paint), giving playful energy to a tale that lacks a strong drive or emotional outcome.

On an over-complicated maze set by Mark Wendland (Broadway’s Heisenberg), with pretty costuming by Toni-Leslie James (Broadway’s Thoughts of a Colored Man), pleasant lighting by Jules Fisher + Peggy Eisenhauer (Broadway’s Harmony) and David Lander (2ST/Broadway’s Torch Song), the story of her growth rises up to the light with a care that is genuine and appealing, albeit not the most dramatically compelling. The burial of Tía’s ashes and the awards ceremony don’t sprout enough energy to compel us to lean in completely. If only Testa’s Granmama could have had a stronger hand in this musical’s creation. That woman, at least in the manner that Testa embodied her big and loud, might have added some of that exhilarating passion and tension that existed inside of her marriage to her husband, Anuncia’s Granpapa, portrayed well by Enrique Acevedo (NYCC Encores’ Evita). I needed more of that passion and energy for me to stay completely tuned in to LCT‘s The Gardens of Anuncia. Not a dance or near kiss with a deer or two. That’s just “weird” and unnecessary.